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The  Fifty  Years  Bctivcen  1857  and 
1907,  and  Beyond 


AN  ADDRESS 

At  the  University  of  North  Carolina,  June  3,  1907,  on  the 

FIFTIETH  ANNIVERSARY  of  the  Graduation 

OF  THE  CLASS  OF  1857. 

By  col.  BINGHAM, 

Class  Orator. 


Col.  Bingham  vvas  introduced  by  Col.  Thomas  S.  Kenan,  Class  President,  in 
the  following  language: 

Col.  Robert  Bingham,  tlie  youngest  survivor  of  the  class  of  1857,  has  been 
chosen  to  represent  the  class  today.  The  School  which  the  Binghams,  from 
grandfather  to  grandson,  have  administered  since  1793,  conducted  in  Middle 
North  Carolina  for  ninety-nine  years  and  located  on  the  Asheville  Plateau  since 
1891,  is  the  oldest  one  in  the  South,  and  is  the  only  school  in  the  United  States 
which  has  been  conducted  by  the  same  family  so  as  to  touch  three  centuries. 
It  touched  the  waning  years  of  the  eighteenth  century,  it  continued  through  the 
waxing  and  waning  years  of  the  nineteenth  century  and  has  attained  its  greatest 
vigor  and  expansion  in  the  waxing  years  of  the  twentieth  century. 

The  continuous  connection  of  the  Binghams  with  this  University  is  longer 
than  that  of  any  other  family  in  the  United  States  with  any  other  university  in 
the  United  States,  except  that  of  the  .-Xdamses  v\'ith  Harvard.  It  began  with  the 
grandfather  of  the  present  Headmaster,  who  was  Professor  of  ancient  languages 
in  the  University  in  1800.  It  continued  witli  his  son,  William  James  Bingham, 
the  SchooVs  second  Headmaster,  who  graduated  with  first  distinction  in  1825 
and  declined  to  accept  a  professorship  in  the  University  because  he  considered 
the  School  his  vocation.  It  continued  with  William  Bingham,  the  School's  third 
Headmaster,  who  graduated  in  1S56  with  first  distinction,  and  died  in  1873. 
Robert  Bingham,  its  fourth  Headmaster,  graduated  with  first  distinction  in  1857, 
and  has  administered  the  School  as  its  fourth  Headmaster  since  1873,  having 
declined  a  professorship  in  the  University  because,  like  his  fatlier,  he  considered 
the  School  his  vocation. 

\Vhen  the  War  between  the  Sections  broke  out,  he  went  to  the  front  and  sur- 
rendered with  General  Lee's  7,892  armed  men  at  Appomattox  Court  House. 
After  the  war  ended  he  resumed  his  place  in  the  school,  his  partnership  and  his 
share  of  the  school's  income,  after  paying  a  substitute,  having  been  kept  intact 
for  him  by  his  father  and  brother  during  his  whole  absence. 


His  son  Robert,  who  was  in  the  University  in  1889-90-91,  taught  in  the 
School  for  four  years,  and  may  feel  it  his  duty  to  leave  the  Law  and  become  its 
fifth  Headmaster  if  there  shall  be  need.  Robert's  son  Robert,  the  third  of  the 
name,  and  of  tlie  fifth  generation  from  the  School's  founder,  is  already  in 
strenuous  training  as  the  School's  sixth  Headmaster,  and  the  three  Robert 
Binghams,  father,  son  and  grandson,  are  with  us  here  today.  It  is  most  fitting, 
therefore,  that  Robert  Bingham  should  represent  the  class  of  1857  at  the  fiftieth 
anniversary  of  our  graduation. 

Colonel  Bingham,  who  on  rising,  was  received  with  loud  applause,  spoke 
as  follows: 


It  would  be  interesting  and  instructive  on  an  occasion  like  this  to  deal  in 
reminiscences;  but  with  things  more  vital  to  say,  I  shall  confine  myself  to  but 
one  reminiscence,  which  I  refer  to  because  it  contrasts  tlie  educational  condi- 
tions of  to-day  and  of  SO  years  ago  very  sharply. 

In  1853,  when  the  class  of  1857  matriculated,  there  was  not  a  single  Uni- 
versity West  or  South  of  the  University  of  North  Carolina.  Now  there  are 
about  30  Universities,  and  Universities  so-called  in  the  state  of  Tennessee,  more 
than  30  in  the  state  of  Texas,  and  according  to  the  statistics  of  the  late  Prof. 
Baskerville  of  Vanderbilt  University,  tliere  are  more  Universities  and  Univer- 
sities so-called  in  the  Southern  states  than  in  all  the  rest  of  the  English  speak- 
ing world. 

Up  to  1875,  80  years  after  its  foundation,  this  University  had  never  created 
a  President  for  itself,  and  in  1853,  when  we  matriculated,  only  one  of  the  full 
Professors  was  an  alumnus  of  the  University,  and  only  one  was  of  Southern 
birth.  All  the  others  were  Northern  men  from  Northern  colleges,  except  one, 
and  he  was  an  Englishman.  In  1853  the  University  had  only  about  200  North 
Carolina  students;  Davidson  only  100  in  all;  "Wake  Forest  about  the  same  num- 
ber, and  Trinity  was  founded  only  in  1853.  Now  this  University  has  680  North 
Carolina  students,  and  our  Denominational  Colleges  aggregate  more  than  1,000 
North  Carolina  students,  an  increase  of  about  300  per  cent  for  the  University 
and  of  more  than  500  per  cent  for  the  Denominational  Colleges,  and  the  State's 
A.  &  M.  College,  presided  over  by  an  alumnus  and  ex-president  of  the  University, 
an  impossible  conception  in  1853,  has  about  500  North  Carolina  students. 

In  1853  very, few,  if  any,  men  of  North  Carolina  training  were  sought  as 
teachers  anywhere,  and  we  ourselves  imported  Northern  men  from  Northern 
colleges  as  presidents  and  professors  in  our  University  and  in  our  institutions 
of  learning,  both  for  our  young  men  and  our  young  women,  very  much  as  we 
imported  our  dry  goods  and  notions  from  the  North. 

■When  a  North  Carolinian  was  called  for  in  1833  to  succeed  President  Cald- 
well, of  New  Jersey  and  a  graduate  of  Princeton,  the  politicians  determined  to 
"shelve"  David  L.  Swain,  their  most  dangerous  rival  for  the  United  States  senate, 


by  makiiif!  liim  Pri-sidint  of  tlie  University.  He  was  a  man  of  Rrcat  natural 
gifts,  and  had  risen  more  rapidly  than  any  other  politician  had  ever  done  in  the 
state  before,  or  than  any  one  has  ever  done  since,  though  he  had  but  little  train- 
ing of  any  school  and  but  two  months'  training  of  any  college,  and  the  United 
States  Senate,  his  greatest  ambition,  seemed  easily  within  his  grasp.  But  a 
combination  of  the  other  less  successful  politicians  against  him  sent  one  of  his 
rivals  to  the  Senate  and  made  him  President  of  the  University. 

One  of  the  humorists  of  those  days  said  of  the  new  President,  that  North 
Carolina  had  been  very  kind  to  her  "favorite  son."  She  had  sent  him  to  the 
House  of  Commons;  she  had  sent  him  to  the  State  Senate;  she  had  made  him 
Solicitor ;  she  had  made  him  a  Judge ;  she  had  sent  him  to  Congress ;  she  had 
made  him  Governor,  all  in  twelve  years,  and  now  she  had  sent  him  to  the  Uni- 
versity to  be  educated.  Think  of  making  a  University  President  on  such  a 
basis  now. 

But  of  late  universities  and  colleges  conferring  degrees  in  27  states  of  the 
Union  and  in  three  foreign  countries  have  come  to  North  Carolina  for  presi- 
dents and  professors.  This  University  has  created  three  Presidents  for  itself, 
one  for  the  University  of  Texas,  one  for  Tulane  and  one  for  the  University  of 
Virginia.  This  University  has  furnished  157  presidents  and  professors  to  uni- 
versities and  colleges;  Davidson  since  its  foundation  in  1837,  has  furnished  80; 
Wake  Forest,  since  its  foundation  in  1838,  has  furnished  104;  Trinity,  since  its 
foundation  in  1853,  has  furnished  75;  and  these  North  Carolina-bred  Presi- 
dents and  Professors,  416  in  all,  and  enough  not  recorded  to  carry  the  number 
to  450,  have  carried  our  North  Carolina  standard  of  culture  to  Alabama,  Ar- 
kansas, California,  Connecticut,  District  of  Columbia,  Florida,  Georgia,  Ken- 
tucky, Louisiana,  Maryland,  Massachusetts,  New  Mexico,  Michigan,  Mississippi, 
New  Hampshire,  New  Jersey,  New  York,  Ohio,  Oklahoma,  Pennsylvania,  South 
Carolina,  Tennessee,  Texas,  Virginia,  Wisconsin,  and  across  the  seas  to  Brazil, 
China  and  Japan. 


II. 


On  the  4th  of  June,  just  50  years  ago,  the  Class  of  1857  entered  life  in  a 
period  of  profound  peace;  but  it  was  the  ominous  stillness  which  precedes  the 
earthquake.  By  June,  1861,  seventy-five  thousand  (75,000)  men  had  been 
ordered  out  to  quell  an  insurrection  in  the  Southern  States  in  "Ninety  Days." 
By  June,  1865,  three  million  four  hundred  thousand  (3,400,000)  men  had  met 
in  deadly  conflict  on  more  than  2,200  stricken  fields,  and  a  radiant,  but  unstable 
civilization  had  been  swept  away. 

Every  member  of  the  class  of  1857  was  in  the  Confederate  Army. 

How  few  of  them  are  here  today !  How  few  of  the  absent  ones  are  still  in 
the  land  of  life !    How  many  have  gone  the  way  of  all  the  earth !    Of  the  69  men 


with  the  dew  of  youth  upon  them  who  took  their  diplomas  here  50  years  ago, 
only  IS  remain ;  all  the  others  "have  passed  over  to  the  silent  majority  through 
the  gates  which  open  onlv  outward,"  and  now, 

'■Tlicir  plucL-  in  all  the  pomp  that  fills 
The  circuit  of  the  summer  hills 
Is  that  their  graves  are  green  ;" 
for, 
"The  moss-clad  marbles  rest 
On  the  friends  we  loved  the  best, 

In  their  bloom ; 

And  the  names  we  loved  to  hear 

Have  been  carved  for  many  a  year 

On  the  tomb." 

And,  alas!  no  friendly  marble  marks  the  nameless  graves  of  some  who  fell 
in  battle.    Of  more  than  one  it  might  be  said: 

"We  buried  him  darkly  at  the  dead  of  night. 
The  sods  with  our  bayonets  turning 
By  the  struggling  moonbeams'  misty  light. 
And  the  lantern  dimly  burning. 

"No  useless  coffin  enclosed  his  breast ; 

Not  in  sheet  nor  shroud  we  wound  him ; 
But  he  lay  like  a  warrior  taking  his  rest. 
With  his  martial  cloak  around  him. 

"Sadly  and  slovvly  we  laid  him  down, 

From  the  field  of  his  fame  fresh  and  gory ; 
We  carved  not  a  line,  we  raised  not  a  stone. 
But  left  him  alone  in  his  glory." 

And  some  did  not  have  even  this  much  of  a  soldier's  burial,  but,  "with  the 
dew  on  their  brows  and  the  rust  on  their  mail,"  they  lay  unburied  where  they 
fell,  with  no  eye  to  look  on  them  save  the  pitiless  sun  by  day  and  the  pitiful 
moon  and  stars  by  night,  and  there  they  remained  till, 

"Lost  all  human  trace,  each  went  away 
To  mix  forever  with  the  elements, 
To  be  a  brother  to  the  insensible  rock 
And  to  the  sluggish  clod  which  the  rude  swain 
Turns  with  his  share  and  treads  upon." 

We  who  remain  "to  meet  with  and  greet  with"  each  other  are  like  the  sailors 
of  Aeneas's  ships  after  the  storm,  raised  "by  the  vindictive  hate  of  cruel  Juno." 
"Rari  nantes  in  gurgite  vasto,"  a  few  survivors  still  afloat  on  the  great  deep  which 
has  engulfed  so  many. 

For  us  who  survive  it  is  a  great  pleasure  and  a  great  privilege  to  meet  here 
again  to-day.  We  look  out  on  a  world  almost  as  new  as  the  New  World  Co- 
lumbus saw  from  the  deck  of  the  Pinta  500  years  ago.     Old  things  have  passed 


away.  The  old  theories,  the  old  methods,  the  old  ideiils,  the  old  means  of  com- 
munication, of  lighting,  of  heatinp;,  of  trans[)ortation,  and,  most  of  all,  the  Old 
South  of  our  childhood,  youth  and  earliest  manhood,  are  all  "gone  like  yester- 
day." And  much  that  is  Rone  we  are  not  unwilling  to  have  buried  out  of  our 
sight,  as  we  arc  not  unwilling  to  have  the  dead  body  of  a  friend,  however  dear, 
buried  out  of  sight  when  his  time  has  come  to  pass  from  mortal  vision.  But  it 
is  a  wonderful  privilege  to  have  lived  during  the  half  century  since  1857,  the  half 
century  of  greater  wars,  of  greater  inventions,  of  greater  scientific  and  material 
progress,  of  greater  industrial  expansion,  of  greater  conquest  of  nature  by  man 
than  in  all  the  centuries  combined  from  the  Christian  era  to  the  day  we  grad- 
uated 50  years  ago. 

III. 

And  in  these  50  years,  during  which  we  have  seen  so  much,  have  shared  in 
so  much,  have  suffered  so  much,  have  done  each  his  part  in  achieving  so  much 
the  POLITICAL  changes  have  been  as  notable,  as  unexpected,  and  in  some  things 
as  inconceivable  from  any  past  experience  as  the  material  changes  have  been. 
We,  ourselves,  have  seen  four  of  the  six  acts  of  secession  in  which  the  United 
States  Government  has  been  involved  by  land  and  sea,  five  of  them  with  armed 
men. 

The  first  and  second  ACTS  of  secession,  the  secession  of  the  Colonies  from 
Great  Britain  and  the  secession  form  "The  Articles  of  Confederation  and  Per- 
petual Union,  (which  lasted  only  13  years),  into  THE  constitution,  as  we  know 
it,  were  before  ourt  time;  but  the  United  States  was  born  of  the  first  secession, 
maintained  by  a  war  lasting  seven  years.  The  second  secession  occured  without 
armed  men. 

The  third  secession,  (which  was  sustained  by  the  armies  and  navies  of  the 
United  States),  was  the  secession  of  Texas  from  Mexico;  and  as  the  existence 
of  the  United  States  was  won  by  arms  through  the  first  secession,  the  Pacific 
slope  was  won  by  arms  through  the  tliird  secession,  and  this  made  us  an  inter- 
oceanic  power,  the  indispensable  prerequisite  to  our  ever  becoming  a  great  world 
power.  As  our  interoceanic  position  was  won  through  the  third  secession,  our 
insular  possessions  in  the  Atlantic  and  in  the  Pacific  were  won  by  arms  through 
a  fifth  secession,  that  of  Cuba  from  Spain;  and  through  the  sixth  secession, 
that  of  Panama  from  the  United  States  of  South  America,  which  was  supported 
by  the  presence  of  our  armed  men,  the  possession  of  the  Isthmian  Canal  was 
achieved,  an  acquisition  going  hand  in  hand  with  the  possession  of  the  Pacific 
coast  in  importance.  All  these  acts  of  secession,  except  the  second,  which  was 
bloodless,  were  carried  to  successful  terminations  for  the  sessionists  by  the  armed 
support  of  the  United  States. 

Washington,  who  led  the  first  secession,  was  branded  a  rebel  and  a  traitor 
by  the  anti-sessionists  of  that  day;  and  if  the  secession  of  1776  had  failed,  he 
would  doubtless  have  been  executed  as  a  traitor.  But  the  revolutionary  patriots 
"hung  together  lest  they  should  hang  separately,"  as  Dr.  Franklin  put  it,  till  they 
succeeded  through  the  intervention  of  France,  as  the  secession  of  Texas,  of 
Cuba,  and  of  Panama  succeeded  through  the  intervention  of  the  United  States. 

Looking  backward  we  must  be  filled  with  wonder  that  the  fourth  secession, 
that  of  the  Southern  from  the  Northern  States,  could  ever  have  occurred  at  all. 


It  was  as  illogical  to  contend  for  a  unity  on  the  basis  of  disunity  at  will  after- 
wards as  for  a  marriage  on  the  basis  of  divorce  at  will  afterwards.  Moreover 
it  was  a  case  of  Shakespeare's  "Very  Midsummer  Madness,"  for  one  man  with- 
out money,  without  credit,  without  arms,  without  ships,  without  machine  shops, 
without  the  skilled  labor  to  produce  any  of  these  indispensable  appliances  of 
war,  to  undertake  to  fight  five  men  supplied  with  all  the  appliances  of  war 
themselves,  and  able  to  command  them  from  the  whole  world,  and  with  twenty- 
five  hundred  miles  of  coast  line  from  the  capes  of  Virginia  to  Brownsville, 
Texas,  but  without  a  ship,  without  a  fort,  without  a  sailor  and  with  only  one 
foundry  where  a  gun  could  be  cast! 

And  yet  this  fourth  secession  was  legal  and  constitutional,  according  to  the 
compact  of  1 789 ;  it  was  in  accordance  with  the  instruction  given  at  West  Point 
to  General  Lee  and  President  Davis  and  the  other  Confederate  leaders  from 
Rawle's  View  of  the  Constitution.  This  United  States  government  textbook 
taught  that  the  Union  was  dissoluble  and  that  if  it  should  be  dissolved,  alle- 
giance to  it  ceased  and  reverted  to  the  States  which  created  it.  Our  withdrawal 
from  the  Union  was  in  accordance  with  the  claim  made  repeatedly  and  con- 
tinuously by  New  England  up  to  1850  that  the  right  to  withdraw  from  the 
Union  was  an  inalienable  right  of  a  state.  And  it  is  one  of  the  strangest  ano- 
malies of  history  that  the  people  of  the  South,  who  seceded  most  unwisely,  we 
admit,  but  nevertheless  in  strict  accordance  with  the  original  compact,  should  be 
vilified  as  rebels  and  traitors  for  doing  what  the  people  of  the  North  had  been 
claiming  steadily  as  an  inalienable  right  till  after  the  Mexican  War;  and  that 
their  secession,  plainly  within  their  constitutional  rights  should  have  been  sup- 
pressed by  a  government  which,  itself  born  of  our  first  secession,  had  sustained 
a  second  and  third  secession  before  1861  and  which  has  sustained  two  secessions 
since  186S.  We  protest  against  our  legal  withdrawal  from  the  Union  being  called 
rebellion. 


"Rebellion,  foul,  dishonoring  word. 

Whose  wrongful  blight  so  oft  has  stained 
The  noblest  cause  that  tongue  or  sword 
Of  mortal  ever  lost  or  gained." 


We  protest  against  having  our  children  and  grandchildren  taught  from  his- 
tories, written  by  our  military  antagonists  and  by  our  sectional  and  our  political 
enemies,  that  their  fathers  were  rebels  and  traitors,  when  our  National  Capital 
bears  the  name  and  perpetuates  the  fame  of  the  "secessionist,"  "rebel"  and 
"traitor,"  George  Washington,  and  when  Abraham  Lincoln,  in  his  famous 
Thanksgiving  proclamation  of  November,  1863,  which  ranks  among  the  greatest 
state  papers  among  men,  spoke  of  the  War  between  the  Sections,  not  as  a  re- 
bellion, but  as  "the  lamentable  civil  stripe  in  which  we  are  unavoidably 
ENGAGED."  It  is  an  historical  fact  that  Jefferson  Davis  was  not  tried  for  treason, 
because,  under  several  States'  Rights  decisions  by  Chief  Justice  Chase  before  he 
became  Chief  Justice,  and  under  the  States'  Rights  instruction  received  at  West 


Point  from  Rawlc  on  the  Constitution,  which  was  to  be  put  in  evidence  if  the 
trial  had  occurred,  he  could  not  have  been  convicted. 

And  when  at  the  bcRinning  of  a  great  war  Robert  E.  Lee  subordinated  his 
loyalty  to  the  flag  under  which  he  had  served  so  long  and  with  such  distinction 
to  his  sense  of  duty  to  his  native  state,  when  he  stopped  his  cars  to  the  call  of 
ambition  from  the  strong  and  opened  them  to  the  cry  of  help  from  the  weak; 
when  he  refused  to  accept  the  command  of  the  United  States  armies,  the  highest 
possible  ambition  of  a  professional  soldier,  and  took  a  subordinate  and  pre- 
carious position  offered  to  him  by  the  state  of  Virginia,  he  set  an  example  of 
self-sacrifice  and  devotion  to  duty  for  duty's  sake  unequalcd  in  the  history  of 
soldiers  and  of  armies  since  time  began. 


And  in  these  50  years  since  1857  we  have  lived  under  many  governments, 
each  inconceivable  to  those  who  administered  its  predecessor.  Before  1861  we 
lived  under  the  government  of  the  United  States,  a  condition  inconceivable  to 
the  colonists  before  their  secession  from  the  mother  country,  and  so  for  all  the 
other  changes  of  government  during  this  astounding  half  century  just  behind  us. 
After  North  Carolina  seceded,  we  lived  in  the  independent  republic  of  North 
Carolina,  one  of  tlie  thirteen  republics  acknowledged  by  Great  Britain  in  1783. 
Then  we  lived  in  the  Southern  Confederacy.  When  the  sword  decided  that  we, 
and  the  fathers,  and  New  England  up  to  1850  were  all  wrong,  that  the  teachings 
of  the  United  States  government  at  West  Point  were  false  and  that  the  Union 
had  never  been  dissolved  and  could  never  be  dissolved,  the  victors  dissolved  a 
union  which  they  had  themselves  declared  indissoluble;  a  third  of  the  states  of 
this  inseparable  union  were  declared  to  be  out  of  the  union,  were  treated  as  con- 
quered provinces  and  we  lived  under  a  military  despotism,  contrary  of  the  de- 
cision of  the  sword  of  1865,  contrary  to  the  constitution  and  contrary  to  all  the 
traditions  and  antecedents  of  the  English-speaking  race  since  the  military  des- 
potism of  William  the  Bastard;  and  we  are  still  out  of  the  union  as  far  as  any 
effective  share  in  the  administration  of  the  National  Government  is  concerned. 

Then  we  lived  in  the  Africanized  South,  the  most  inconceivable  government 
among  men,  according  to  all  the  precedents  of  all  the  past,  when  for  the  first 
time  since  the  beginning  of  time  a  white  race  undertook  to  put  the  feet  of  a 
colored  race  on  the  necks  of  the  men  and  women  of  their  own  blood  and  breed. 

With  the  clearer  vision  and  better  perspective  of  a  foreigner,  the  celebrated 
English  historian,  Lecky,  in  his  "Democracy  and  Liberty,"  characterizes  this 
reconstruction  period  as  a  "grotesque  parody  of  government,  a  hideous  orgy  of 
anarchy,  violence,  unrestrained  corruption,  undisguised,  ostentatious,  insulting 
robbery,  such  as  the  world  had  scarcely  ever  seen."  Then  we  lived  in  the  de- 
Africanized  South,  and  each  man  of  the  class  of  1857,  who  survived  the  war,  did 


his  part  to  de-Africanize  the  South.  Then  we  lived  in  the  re-Uniting  States. 
After  the  Spanish  war  we  began  to  hve  in  the  United  States,  and  since  the 
acquisition  of  the  Panama  belt,  we  have  lived  in  National  America.  There 
is  no  parallel  among  civilized  men  to  these  rapid  and  continuous  changes  of 
government  under  which  the  people  of  the  South  have  lived  since  1857,  except 
in  the  25  different  governments  of  France  during  the  last  125  years. 


V. 


But  among  all  these  changes  of  government  during  these  50  most  eventful 
years,  our  intense  instinct  of  Locu,  selp-government  has  never  changed.  As 
long  as  the  South  had  any  share  in  national  politics,  American  statesmen  were 
pure  and  patriotic,  American  politics  were  clean,  graft  was  practically  unknown, 
and  the  government  was  a  government  op  the  people,  BY  the  people  and  FOR  the 
people. 

But  since  the  people  of  the  Southern  States  have  been  excluded  from  all  share 
in  National  politics,  the  great  republic  of  the  west  has  drifted  away  more  and 
more  from  the  basic  principles  of  local  self-goveriunent.  By  tariff  legislation  for 
the  Classes  and  pension  legislation  for  the  Masses  (from  which  the  South  has 
been  mercifully  delivered),  the  fallacy  that  the  government  must  support  the  peo- 
ple has  been  enthroned  and  the  sound  Democratic  doctrine  of  the  fathers  of  the 
republic  that  the  people  must  support  the  government  has  been  df throned;  and 
instead  of  a  democracy,  the  United  States  Government,  as  administered  by  leaders 
from  the  Northern  states  since  1865,  has  become  the  most  pronounced  plutocracy 
on  earth,  in  which  a  few  men,  protected  by  legislation  in  their  own  interests, 
have  heaped  up  fortunes  in  comparison  with  which  Croesus  and  Crassus  were 
paupers.  Moreover,  this  vicious  tendency  is  fostered  in  the  Northern  states  by 
the  fact  that  with  the  very  large  infusion  of  foreign  blood,  the  intense  instinct  of 
local  self-government  has  been  largely  bred  out.  In  the  Central  West,  according 
to  the  Census  of  1900,  one  inhabitant  in  every  five  is  of  foreign  birth.  In  the 
South  as  a  whole,  only  one  in  one  hundred  and  twenty-five  is  of  foreign  birth; 
and  so  with  the  phenomenal  increase  of  wealth  and  luxury,  which  in  all  ages  has 
been  accompanied  by  a  decline  of  civic  virtue  and  righteousness,  a  government 
OF  the  plutocrat,  by  the  plutocrat,  and  FOR  the  plutocrat  has  displaced  a  govern- 
ment of  tlie  people,  by  the  people  and  for  the  people,  and  graft  stalks  rampant. 

Of  all  the  changes  during  the  last  50  years,  this  is  perhaps  the  most  notable, 
and  it  is  the  most  malign  and  the  most  ominous.  But  there  are  not  only  seven 
thousand,  but  seven  million,  in  the  South  who  have  not  bowed  their  knees  to  this 
Baal.  We  fought  a  terrific  war,  not  for  slavery,  not  for  secession,  but  for  the 
right  of  LOCAL  SELF-GOVERNMENT,  and  this  intensest  instinct  of  the  man  of  Anglo- 
Saxon  blood  and  breed  is  more  emphasized  and  intensified  in  the  South  today 
than  anywhere  else  where  God's  sun  shines.  In  the  face  of  the  fearful  com- 
pression, suppression,  repression,  depression  and  OPPRESSION  of  the  recon- 
struction period,  in  the  face  of  the  hostile  army  kept  on  a  war  footing  against  us 
for  years  after  1865,  in  the  face  of  hostile  North  outnumbering  us  five  to  one,  in 
the  face  of  the  enfranchised  negroes  at  home,  instigated  by  hostile  carpetbaggers, 


in  the  face  of  our  abject  poverty  at  the  end  of  the  war,  every  state  in  the  South 
has  roBuined  its  local  autonomy;  we  have  cjuadrupled  tlic  cotton  crop  and  have 
entered  upon  a  period  of  financial  and  industrial  wealth,  expansion  and  power 
inconceivable  in  18S7,  and  never  before  attained  by  any  conquered  people  in  so 
short  a  time. 

And  when  the  time  comes  for  the  plutocrats  and  the  autocratic  bosses  to  be 
dethroned  and  for  a  government  of  the  people,  by  the  people  and  for  the  people 
to  be  enthroned  again,  as  come  it  must,  unless  the  American  Republic  is  to  go 
the  way  of  all  the  republics  of  the  past,  the  conservative  men  of  both  sections,  who 
esteem  patriotism  above  greed  and  democracy  above  plutocracy,  will  work  cor- 
dially together  again,  shoulder  to  shoulder,  heart  to  heart,  hand  to  hand  as  of 
yore;  but  the  lion-like  leaders  of  this  reformation,  if  it  can  be  a  reformation,  and 
of  this  REVOLUTION,  if  it  must  be  a  revolution,  must  come  from  the  South  again, 
as  in  the  days  of  Washington,  Jefferson,  Madison,  Monroe  and  Marshall,  who 
made  the  nation  at  first ;  for  it  is  in  the  South  where  the  lion-like  leaders  of 
local  self-government  have  been  bom,  bred  and  nourished,  and  where  the  con- 
ditions since  1865  have  kept  them  in  the  most  strenuous  training.  And  then  the 
sceptre  will  return  to  the  South  again,  and  the  law-giver  will  be  between  our  feet 
again  as  of  yore;  for  all  things  come  to  those  who  wait  and  who  keep  pure  and 
grow  strong  while  they  wait. 

The  "Clan  Alpine  Fiery  Cross"  of  local  self-government  was  handed  down  to 
the  fathers  of  our  fathers'  fathers  from  the  forest  of  Gennany.  It  summoned  our 
ancestors  to  arms  against  the  Plantaganets  at  Runnymede,  against  a  foreign 
ecclesiastic  master  in  the  days  of  the  Armada  and  Queen  Elizabeth,  against  the 
Stuarts  in  the  days  of  Cromwell,  against  the  House  of  Brunswick  in  1776.  This 
same  fiery  cross  of  local  self-government  summoned  the  people  of  the  Southern 
States  to  arms  in  1861,  and  we  bore  it  aloft  in  defense  of  our  local  rights  till  we 
were  overwhelmed  by  numbers  in  "the  imminent,  deadly  breach." 

But  the  fiery  cross  was  still  all  aflame,  and  against  odds  seemingly  much 
more  overwhelming  than  when 

"Caimon  to  right  of  us. 
Cannon  to  left  of  us, 
Cannon  in  front  of  us 
Volleyed  and  thundered," 

we  bore  it  aloft  again  till  we  regained  what  we  had  lost  in  the  "imminent,  deadly 
breach,"  and  every  Southern  state  again  governs  itself  locally. 

And  it  becomes  us  to  hand  down  the  Clan  Alpine  Fiery  Cross  of  Local  Self- 
Government,  all  aflame,  to  our  children,  to  their  children  and  to  the  children  of 
their  children's  children. 

"The  muster  place  is  Lanric  mead. 
Speed  forth  the  signal,  Clansman,  speed." 


VI. 

But,  before  closing,  I  wish  to  deliver  a  brief  and  most  urgent  message  from 
the  outgoing  to  the  incoming  generation  of  University  men,  and  to  lay  a  most 
imperative  duty  upon  you.  Our  faces  are  turned  toward  the  West  and  the  even- 
ing star ;  youks  toward  the  morning  star  and  the  sunrise.  The  last  50  years  were 
committed  to  us;  the  next  SO  years  are  committed  to  you.  We  regained  our  lost 
local  autonomy  against  overwhelming  odds,  and  that  is  basic;  but  the  blood  and 
pressure  left  us  too  narrow,  and  too  sectional.  You  must  maintain  what  we  have 
attained,  for  the  State  as  a  State,  for  the  South  as  the  South ;  but  you  must  regain 
the  NATIONAL  spirit  which  sectionalism  at  the  North  and  sectionalism  at  the 
South  has  obscured,  and  which  it  has  destroyed  in  many  cases ;  and  sectionalism, 
whether  at  the  North  or  at  the  South,  has  always  been,  and  as  long  as  it  exists 
will  continue  to  be  a  menace  to  the  greatness,  power  and  glory  of  National 
America;  for  National  America  is  the  only  America  of  the  future.  Southern 
men  created  the  Nation  at  first.  Jefferson  wrote  the  Declaration  of  Independ- 
ence; Washington  won  that  independence;  Madison,  more  than  any  other  man, 
created  the  constitution  and  secured  its  adoption;  INIarshall  interpreted  it,  and 
these  were  all  Virginians.  Of  the  fifteen  presidents  before  1861,  nine  were  from 
the  South ;  they  occupied  the  presidential  chair  48  years,  two-thirds  of  the  time, 
and  five  of  them  were  re-elected.  Northern  presidents  occupied  the  chair  but  24 
years,  only  one-third  of  the  time,  and  no  one  of  them  was  re-elected.  But  it  was 
left  to  two  sons  of  this  University  to  produce  a  greater  national  and  international 
effect  than  ever  has  been  produced  by  any  graduate  of  any  other  university  in 
the  United  States.  President  Polk,  who  graduated  here  in  1818,  added  the 
Pacific  coast  to  our  domain  and  made  us  an  interoceanic  power,  a  thing  of  in- 
calculable importance  to  our  national  and  international  life.  William  A.  Gra- 
ham, who  graduated  here  in  1824,  with  the  consent  of  President  Fillmore  and 
Daniel  Webster,  Secretary  of  State  (which  was  refused  at  first  and  afterwards 
very  reluctantly  granted),  as  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  opened  Japan,  a  thing,  with 
its  actual  and  possible  results,  of  incalculable  national  and  international  im- 
portance. Why  shall  not  a  broad  and  national  spirit  expel  the  narrow  and  sec- 
tional spirit  which  prevails,  too  much,  in  the  South,  a  spirit,  which  has  dwarfed 
our  statesmen  so  that  the  Nation,  as  a  Nation,  has  no  need  for  them  because  the 
Nation  thinks  them  unfit?  What  Southern  man  is  there  whom  the  whole  Nation 
would  think  fit  to  be  President  or  Vice-President  unless  he  should  leave  the 
South  and  make  name  and  fame  in  a  Northern  State?  The  evil  spirit  of  sec- 
tional America  whether  in  the  North  or  in  the  South,  must  be  exorcised.  The 
national  spirit  of  Washington,  Jefferson,  Madison  and  Marshall  of  Virginia,  Polk 
and  Graham  of  North  Carolina,  must  be  restored;  and  young  men,  why  may  not 
some  of  you  aspire  to  those  highest  National  positions  so  often  occupied  by  the 
Southern  men  in  the  past?  Why  shall  not  each  of  you  do  his  part  to  weld  a  New 
South,  a  New  North,  a  New  West,  a  New  East  into  the  NEvif  National 
America  of  the  future,  which  is  becoming  so  great,  so  strong  and  so  glorious  in 
the  present,  and  which  will  become  still  greater  and  still  stronger  and  still  more 
glorious  in  the  degree  in  which  we  all  become  more  unitedly  animated  with  the 
spirit  of  National  Americans? 


VII. 

Survivors  of  the  class  of  1857,  I  know  of  no  better  description  of  our  past 
since  our  graduation  fifty  years  ago,  and  of  no  better  inspiration  for  so  much  of 
the  future  as  many  remain  to  us  than  in  Tennyson's  Ulysees,  of  which  Carlisle 
said  when  he  read  it,  "Heboid  a  great  poet  has  come  with  a  great  poem."  Ulysees 
had  returned  to  his  kingdom  of  "rockbound  Ithica"  in  safety  after  all  his  wan- 
derings and  hardships  and  dangers  by  land  and  sea,  and  had  won  the  right  to 
pass  the  evening  of  his  days  in  peace  and  rest.  But  he  craved  life  and  action. 
Peace  and  rest  palled  on  him.     He  must  needs  seek  the  sea  again.     He  says : 

"It  little  profits  that  an  idle  king. 
By  this  still  hearth,  among  these  barren  crags, 
I  mete  and  dole  unequal  laws  unto  a  savage  race, 
That  hoard,  and  sleep,  and  feed,  and  know  not  me. 
I  cannot  rest  from  travel ;  I  will  drink 
Life  to  the  lees.     All  times  I  have  enjoyed 
Greatly,  have  suffered  greatly,  both  with  those 
That  loved  me  and  alone ;  on  shore  and  when 
Through  scudding  drifts  the  rainy  Hyades 
Vext  the  dim  sea.    I  am  become  a  name; 
[And  so  have  wc  become  a  name]. 
For  always  roaming  with  a  hungry  heart. 
Much  have  I  seen  and  known — cities  of  men. 
And  manners,  climates,  councils,  governments, 
Myself  not  least,  but  honored  of  them  all — 
And  drunk  delight  of  battle  with  my  peers. 
Far  on  the  ringing  plains  of  lofty  Troy. 
[And  so  have  we  drunk  delight  of  battle], 
I  am  a  part  of  all  that  I  have  met ; 
Yet  all  e-X-perience  is  an  arch  where  through 
Gleams  that  untraveled  world  whose  margin  fades 
Forever  and  forever  as  I  move. 
How  dull  it  is  to  pause,  to  make  an  end, 
To  rust  unbumished,  not  to  shine  in  use ! 
As  tho'  to  breathe  were  life.    Life  piled  on  life, 
Were  all  too  little;  and  of  life  to  me 
Little  remains;  but  every  hour  is  saved 
From  that  eternal  silence;  something  more; 
A  bringer  of  new  things.     And  vile  it  were 
For  some  few  suns  to  store  and  hoard  myself. 
And  this  gray  spirit  yearning  in  desire 
To  follow  knowledge  like  a  sinking  star. 
Beyond  the  utmost  bound  of  human  thought. 


My  son  Telemachus,  to  whom  I  leave 

The  sceptre  and  the  isle,  will  pay  meet  adoration  to 

My  household  gods  when  I  am  gone.     He  works 

His  work !  I  mine ;  and  I  must  put  to  sea. 

There  lies  the  port;  the  vessel  puffs  her  sail; 

There  gloom  the  dark,  broad  seas.     My  mariners, 

Souls  that  have  toiled  and  wrought  and  thought  with  me — 

That  ever  with  a  frolic  welcome  took 

The  thunder  and  the  sunshine  and  opposed 

Free  hearts,  free  foreheads — you  and  I  are  old; 

Old  age  has  yet  his  honor  and  his  toil. 

Death  closes  all ;  but  something  ere  the  end, 

Some  work  of  noble  note  may  yet  be  done 

Not  unbecoming  men  who  strove  with  gods. 

The  lights  begin  to  twinkle  from  the  rocks; 

The  long  day  wanes;  the  slow  moon  climbs;  the  Deep 

Moans  round  with  many  voices.     Come,  my  friends, 
'Tis  not  too  late  to  seek  a  newer  world. 

Push  off  and  sitting  well  in  order, 

Smite  the  sounding  furrows;  for  my  purpose  holds 

To  sail  beyond  the  sunset  and  the  baths 

Of  all  the  western  stars  until  I  die. 

It  may  be  that  the  gulfs  will  wash  us  down; 

It  may  be  we  shall  touch  the  Happy  Isles 

And  see  the  great  Achiles  whom  we  knew. 

[And  we  would  say. 

And  see  great  Robert  Lee  whom  we  all  knew]. 

Tho'  much  is  taken,  much  abides;  and  tho' 

We  have  not  now  that  strength  which  in  old  days 

Moved  Earth  and  Heaven,  yet  what  we  are,  we  are, 

One  equal  temper  of  heroic  hearts 

Made  weak  by  time  and  fate,  but  strong  in  will. 

To  strive,  to  seek,  to  find,  and  not  to  yield." 

Comrades  of  the  class  of  1857,  "Rari  nantes  in  gurgite  vasto," 

Survivors  still  afloat  on  the  great  deep  which  has  engulfed  so  many,  why  shall 
we  not 
"Sail  beyond  the  sunset  and  the  baths 

Of  all  the  western  stars"  into  that  longest  day 

Where  shines  the  midnight  sun,  and  there  abide. 

To  strive,  to  seek,  to  find,  and  not  to  yield. 

Until  that  longest  day  shall  wane ;  until  that  long  abiding  sun 

Shall  sink  beneath  those  winter  seas; 

Until  the  quiet  night  envelopes  all. 


i 


